On March 2nd 1945, G-ral Gheorghe Avramescu, in command
\nof the Romanian 4th Army Corps on the frontline in Czechoslovakia,
\nwas arrested by the Soviet authorities. Since that day, the disappearance of
\none of the most important commanders of the Romanian army has been the object of
\nguesswork and supposition. <\/p>\n
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Col. Sergiu Balanovici, PhD, historian and museographer with the
\nBotosani County Museum, told Radio Romania News and Current Affairs about G-ral
\nAvramescu’s military career: <\/p>\n
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Sergiu Balanovici: In 1913, he took
\npart in the Romanian campaign in Bulgaria. That same year, he started studying
\nat the Superior War College, but had to put that on hold in 1914, when WWI
\nbroke out. Gheorghe Avramescu was part of the class that graduated in 1919.
\nDuring the war for the unification of Romania, he commanded first a company,
\nthen a battalion in the south of Dobrogea, where he was wounded. In the summer
\nof 1917, Captain Avramescu fought at Marasesti. He was awarded the Order of the
\nStar of Romania for special merit, and in September 1917 he was exceptionally
\ngranted the rank of major. In 1936 he was made a brigadier general, and in 1940
\nhe was made division general. Every single commander, without exception,
\nappreciated his activity, and considered him an unsurpassed leader, from every
\npoint of view.<\/p>\n
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On June 22nd 1941, Romania
\njoined Germany as an ally against the Soviet Union, and General Gheorghe
\nAvramescu continued to act impeccably on that front. Here with details is
\nSergiu Balanovici. <\/p>\n
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Sergiu Balanovici: He is the central
\nfigure in the liberation of Bukovina. There was heavy fighting, including
\naround Hotin, but the mountain rangers had very good leadership. This unit was
\nwell in advance of the troops in the rest of the Romanian frontline. The 3rd
\nArmy Corps started the offensive towards Bug without any operating rest, and
\nreached the river by mid-August, when it took over the bridgehead captured by
\nGerman mechanized infantry, and the battle north of the Sea of Azov ended with
\na decisive Romanian-German victory.<\/p>\n
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After August 23rd, 1944, the Soviets took over
\nunofficially command of Romanian troops. The Romanian army was an ally of the
\ndominant power, but the country was under virtual occupation. Here is Sergiu
\nBalanovici back at the microphone. <\/p>\n
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Sergiu Balanovici: An old practice
\nwas starting to become evident, one applied by the Germans on the Eastern Front
\ntoo, that of the more powerful ally imposing its supremacy. It soon got to the
\npoint where Romanian interests were not just ignored, they were violated. On
\nSeptember 7th 1944, Marshal Malinovski, commander of the Ukrainian
\nfront, took over all Romanian operating units. In spite of good results on the
\nbattlefield, tensions started emerging at command level, because of the way in
\nwhich the Soviets understood cooperation. An often-used strategy, which
\nAvramescu opposed, was that of presenting Romanian victories as successes
\nscored by Red Army troops. Avramescu correctly noted that this was about
\npolitics, and that our contribution was being swept under the rug on purpose,
\nso that we could not reap the benefits of alliance.<\/p>\n
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On December 14th 1944, Avramescu, in no uncertain terms,
\nprotested directly to Malinovski the fact that the Romanian 4th Army
\nCorps had not been quoted in any official press release. In fact, its very existence
\nwas not even mentioned. General Avramescu’s repeated protests, meant to defend
\nthe honor and dignity of the Romanian army, soon turned him into a persona non
\ngrata within the boundaries of the so-called cooperation with the Soviet
\ncommand, which seems to have led to his arrest. The Romanian army came to be
\naccused by the Soviets of operative inability, and even treason. <\/p>\n
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18 years after the arrest and disappearance of General Gheorghe
\nAvramescu, in 1963, the Soviet authorities answered his wife’s inquiries
\nthrough the Red Cross. The letter said that the general had died on 3 March
\n1945 on Hungarian territory, in a German air raid. The letter was in line with
\nthe official Soviet account issued on March 22nd 945, according to
\nwhich General Avramescu was killed in the back seat of the car where he sat
\nflanked by two of the three NKVD officers who had arrested him. On Hungarian
\nterritory, the car had been allegedly strafed by German fighters, and the three
\nSoviet officers got away with their lives, the general being the only victim of
\nGerman bullets. <\/p>\n
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In spite of the fact that real reason for the arrest is still veiled
\nin mystery, General Avramescu’s disappearance is still closely linked to the
\npolitical shifts occurring when Romania was taken over by the Soviet puppet
\ngovernment led by Petru Groza, on 6 March 1945. <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few months after German troops pulled out from Romanian territory, the Romanian armed forces were operating alongside its new allies in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":129418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41141],"tags":[42626,29749,42627],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-129417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-history-show","tag-general-avramescu","tag-germany","tag-nkvd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n